]]>275A new tool to make it easier to work with ABS datahttp://mattcowgill.com/2019/02/02/a-new-tool-to-make-it-easier-to-work-with-abs-data/
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 06:21:47 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=231read more A new tool to make it easier to work with ABS data]]>This post will only be of interest to people who work with ABS time series data in R.

To use most time series data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics1 you need to click around on their website – with your hands, like an animal – and download a spreadsheet, like it’s the 90s or something. Horrifying stuff.2 Even worse, once you’ve got the spreadsheet you’ll find the data is formatted in a way that makes it hard to work with in statistical software.

Building on earlier work by Zoe Meers and Jaron Lee3, I’ve written an R package called readabs that makes it easier to work with ABS time series data.

The package has one key function, read_abs(), which will download, import, and tidy ABS time series data for you.

The messiness of ABS time series

If you want to visualise or analyse data in R, you will often need to tidy it first. In tidy data:

Each variable forms a column.

Each observation forms a row.

Each type of observational unit forms a table.

ABS time series data is not tidy. Tidying it requires a bit of work. This screenshot of an ABS time series spreadsheet shows some of the problems, namely:

metadata and data are in the same columns;

in some cases, the data are spread across multiple worksheets;

each time series has its own column; and

dates are in an Excel format (eg. Feb-1978 is stored as 28522), which is a pain to convert.

readabs does a lot of the work of tidying these spreadsheets for you, so you can get to your analysis more quickly.

Installing readabs

If you want to install the latest work-in-progress version, you can get it from my GitHub:

devtools::install_github("mattcowgill/readabs")

Using readabs

There’s one main function in the package: read_abs(). To download all the time series spreadsheets from an ABS catalogue number, just run read_abs("9999.0"), replacing “9999.0” with the catalogue number you’re interested in. For example, to get all the time series from the Wage Price Index, catalogue number 6345.0 you’d run:

If you have any suggestions for improvements to the package – or if you find any bugs – please let me know by filing a GitHub issue or emailing me at mattcowgill at gmail.

]]>
231Good content from the World Wide Webhttp://mattcowgill.com/2018/08/28/good-content-from-the-world-wide-web/
Mon, 27 Aug 2018 22:51:10 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=181read more Good content from the World Wide Web]]>Econ blogging is back. It’s good again!

If the RBA were to raise interest rates, what would be the economic costs and benefits of that change? Strange as it is, this question doesn’t seem to be asked often, much less answered, as Nicholas points out.

My general rule has long been that the usefulness of a piece of writing declines in line with the square of the number of times it uses the word ‘neoliberalism’. David Sligar shows that I’ve been too hasty in dismissing its usefulness as a concept.

What public policy tasks should be delegated to independent government agencies, like central banks, and which should not? What are the conditions under which it is acceptable and desirable to delegate authority? These questions aren’t asked often enough, but they’re discussed in a very interesting way in this podcast.

A lot of criticism of randomised controlled trials comes off as the impotent rage of an obsolete generation, shaking their fists at the youngsters who aren’t paying sufficient deference to their work. This piece by Pritchett rises above that. The gist: the problem in developing countries is not discovering what works, it’s disseminating existing knowledge about what works. Also: it’s better to be approximately correct about a big thing than precisely right about a small thing. Semi-persuasive stuff!

If you get paid less than your co-workers, you’re more likely to quit your job. But getting paid less than the market rate – for people outside your workplace – is a much less powerful motivator to quit. This isn’t what you’d expect in a competitive labour market, but it is consistent with the idea that labour markets are ‘monopsonistic’ – employers have some power to set wages. Chuck another paper on the ‘monopsony looks like it might be a thing’ pile.

Note: I’m currently off Twitter (because it is a bad website)

]]>181Has Australian politics become more polarised? A response to Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charltonhttp://mattcowgill.com/2018/04/08/has-australian-politics-become-more-polarised-a-response-to-lachlan-harris-and-andrew-charlton/
Sun, 08 Apr 2018 13:38:41 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=117read more Has Australian politics become more polarised? A response to Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton]]>Is the “fundamental operating model of Australian politics breaking down?” That’s the dramatic question that Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton asked in their recent joint piece in the SMH, and answered with a emphatic ‘yes’. Among other things, Harris and Charlton claim that Australian politics has become more ideologically polarised over time, with both voters and candidates drifting away from the political centre. That’s plausible – polarisation is a much-discussed phenomenon in the US – but I’m unconvinced by the data they put forward to support this claim. In this post I’ll consider one part of their argument, that major party candidates have become more ideologically extreme over time.

Exhibit A in Harris and Charlton’s case that politics has become more polarised is this chart, which uses data from the Australian Candidate Study to suggest that fewer major party candidates are ‘moderate’ than used to be the case:
On the face of it, this looks pretty convincing. More than one-in-three major party candidates used to be a ‘moderate’; now it’s down to around one-in-ten. But I have three issues with this:

The trend appears less stark if all the election years covered by the data are included;

The definition of ‘moderate’ is questionable, and the trend appears much less stark if a more intuitive definition is used; and

Declining response rates for the ACS mean we should be cautious about inferring anything about the political views of candidates based on responses to the survey.

First, the inclusion of other years in the survey. Harris & Charlton included only 1996, 2007, and the two most recent elections in their chart. Looking at those four elections, the downward trend looks monotonic – every election has seen a smaller proportion of moderates than the one before. But if we include other elections covered by the Australian Candidate Study, the picture is less clear. The trend still appears to be downwards, but 1996 looks much more like an outlier. The 2010 election featured about the same proportion of moderates as the 1993 or 2001 elections, and the 2013 figure was only a little bit lower. It’s true that the proportion of moderates was appreciably down in 2016, but reading too much into that result in the context of a declining response rate would be dangerous (we’ll come back to this).

My second quibble is with the definition of ‘moderate’ that Harris and Charlton use. They make the following claim:

In 1996 more than one in three Australian politicians (37 per cent) rated themselves as “moderate” – that is, centre-left Liberal and centre-right Labor politicians. This share has shrunk dramatically. At the most recent federal election in 2016 only one in 10 politicians described themselves as moderate.

But the Australian Candidate Study doesn’t ask politicians whether they describe themselves as ‘moderate’. Instead, it asks political candidates to place their own views on a left-right spectrum that runs from 0 to 10. Harris & Charlton have devised their own way of classifying candidates as ‘moderate’ or not based on this 0-10 scale. Harris & Charlton classify ALP candidates as ‘moderate’ only if they rate a 5 or higher on the left-right spectrum; members of the Liberal and National Parties qualify as ‘moderate’ only if they’re a 5 or lower.

But does this really accord with what people understand the term ‘moderate’ to mean in a political context? If an ALP member was very right-wing – a 10 on the 0-10 scale – then they’d qualify as a ‘moderate’ by the Harris & Charlton definition. Similarly, if an LNP member was on the far left, then he or she would qualify as ‘moderate’ in the Harris & Charlton classification. A person whose self-described ideology is far from the political centre qualifies as moderate, so long as their ideology is contrary to that of the bulk of their own party. But a centre-left ALP candidate, or a centre-right LNP candidate, wouldn’t qualify as moderate. To me, this classification doesn’t identify ‘moderates’ so much as it does ‘mavericks’ – those candidates whose views are at odds with their party.

In my view, a political moderate is someone whose views are close to the political centre. So, on the 0-10 scale, moderates would be people who rate a 4, 5, or 6 from either party. ALP candidates who are a ‘4’ qualify as moderate in my definition, as do LNP candidates who place themselves at 6. The chart below shows what the trend looks like if we use this definition of ‘moderate’.

Before 2016, you can make out a slight downward trend if you squint. But, even with 2016 included, the decline in ‘moderates’ is much less striking using this definition than the Harris & Charlton definition. Under the Harris & Charlton definition, the 2016 election featured only a third as many major party moderates as the 1996 election. But if we define moderates to mean ‘candidates in the middle of the political spectrum’, as in the graph above, the picture is much less alarming.

We can set aside the quibbling over the definition of ‘moderate’ and have a look at the full distribution of candidate respondents’ political views, as in the graph below. In every single election from 2001 to 2016 (inclusive), the median ALP respondent to the Australian Candidate Study placed themselves as a ‘3’ on the 0-10 left-right spectrum; the median Liberal or National Party candidate described themselves as a ‘7’. There no change in the middle of the distribution of either party.

Harris and Charlton are of the view that the parties are moving away from the median voter:

The political implications of increasing voter polarisation are profound: the fundamental operating model of Australian politics is breaking down. That operating model was based on the “median voter principle”, which assumes that the electorate is a continuum from conservatives on one side to progressives on the other. The combination of compulsory voting and a two-party system meant that the strategy to win the most votes in Australian politics was always to position your party as close to the median voter as possible.

But, in my view, the ACS data don’t really support this idea that the parties are moving away from the centre. At every election since 1996, the median ALP candidate has been a ‘3’ on the 0-10 ideological spectrum; since 2001 the median Coalition candidate has been a ‘7’.

Finally, I think we need to apply a few more grains of salt to the data. The Australian Candidate Study received 99 responses from major party (ALP + Coalition) candidates in the 2016 election. Of those, only 74 provided a response to the question about their position on the left-right scale. 14 Liberal candidates answered that question, along with 4 National Party candidates. That’s a small sample from which to draw inferences about the whole population of candidates. In fact, the codebook provided by the survey’s organisers contains a disclaimer to say that the responses to questions “cannot be interpreted as summary statistics of the population of interest.” We can’t assume that the handful of major party candidates who answered the survey, particularly from the Coalition side, are representative of the full range of major party candidates. The decline in ‘centrist’ LNP candidates in 2016, seen in the graph above, might reflect a general decline in moderate representatives, or it might reflect the declining response rate to the survey, particularly among Liberal and National candidates.

Harris & Charlton make a lot of important observations in their piece. They show that people are less satisfied with democracy, and voters’ trust in politicians has declined. These trends are important and troubling. But I find their claims about the ideological polarisation of the major parties to be unconvincing.

If the number of employed people rises, those extra workers can come from one of two places. Either the new workers were previously actively looking for a job, in which case they were “unemployed”, or they were out of work and not actively looking for a job, in which case they’re considered to have been “not in the labour force.” The EPI chart shows that in recent months, over 70% of newly employed people have come from the ranks of those who were not in the labour force – the people who were out of work, but not actively looking for a job. That’s the highest proportion on record, in a time series that goes back to 1990.

EPI’s interpretation is that this means that the unemployment rate is decreasingly useful as a measure of slack in the US economy, because there appears to be a large pool of people who are ready and willing to work, but who are not classified as ‘unemployed’ in the labour force statistics.

This led me to wonder: what would the same chart look like for Australia? Here’s the result:

Like in America, most newly employed people were previously not in the labour force. About 67% of newly employed Australians were not actively looking for a job before they got one. That’s about the average in Australia for the past couple of decades. You can see that the trend is pretty cyclical – in times when the labour market has run hot (2000, 2007, 2012), the share of new jobs going to people outside the labour market has risen. In economic slowdowns (2001, 2009-10, 2014-15), the ratio has fallen a bit. We’re now somewhere in the middle.

This is a useful reminder that, like any single statistic, the unemployment rate can’t capture everything that’s going on the in the labour market. As is often noted, it doesn’t take account of people in work who would like more hours (the ‘underemployed’), but it also doesn’t take into account those people who are out of the labour force but may be available to work.

]]>108How does your income compare?http://mattcowgill.com/2018/03/23/how-does-your-income-compare/
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 15:10:11 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=91Have you ever wondered how your income compares to other Australians? Well use this calculator thing I made to look it up then. It takes your household’s after-tax income and adjusts it for the number of people in your house to give your ‘equivalised disposable household income.’ The calculator uses ABS data from 2015-16, which was released in September 2017.

]]>91Real wages in Australiahttp://mattcowgill.com/2018/03/07/real-wages-in-australia/
Wed, 07 Mar 2018 08:10:36 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=82read more Real wages in Australia]]>For no particular reason, here are a couple of graphs I made on average wages for full-time workers in Australia.

]]>82Do state governments drag their federal counterparts down?http://mattcowgill.com/2018/02/22/do-state-governments-drag-their-federal-counterparts-down/
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:45:41 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=58read more Do state governments drag their federal counterparts down?]]>Do state governments drag down their federal counterparts? It’s a common theory among Australian political commentators. The 2016 election suggests the theory might be right.

In the 2016 federal election, the four states/territories1 with non-ALP governments2 swung towards the ALP by an average of 5.2 percentage points. In the states where Labor held power, voters only swung towards the federal ALP by 2.6 percentage points, on average. The average swing towards Labor was bigger – 2.6 percentage points bigger – in the non-Labor states.

The 2016 result bolsters the view that state goverments drag down their federal counterparts. The Coalition fared worse in the non-Labor states, and federal Labor fared worse in the states where they held government. What about in the previous election?

2013, too, is consistent with the story. Every state swung against the ALP, but the swing was bigger in the Labor states. The swing was 3 percentage points worse for the ALP in the Labor states, not that far off the 2.6 percentage point difference in the 2016 election.

If we only looked at the past two elections, the story would be reasonably compelling. But the theory seems a lot less persuasive if we look at prior elections. In 2010, the Labor states swung more heavily towards the federal ALP than the non-ALP states, contrary to what the commentators’ theory predicts. In 2007, all states had Labor governments and they all swung towards the federal ALP; in 2004, Labor was in power in all the states and they all (bar the ACT) swung towards the Coalition. If we go back further in time, the picture gets even murkier.

The last two elections have lent support to the theory that state governments drag down their federal counterparts. The swing to the federal ALP was bigger, on average, in states with a non-ALP government than in ALP states. But if we look back through history, we see plenty of examples where the opposite was true, like the 2010, 2001 and 1998 elections.

On average, if we include at every federal election since 1951, states with Labor governments have swung against the federal ALP by 0.18 points, while non-ALP states have swung towards federal Labor by 0.44 points. That’s about a 0.6 percentage point difference – which is not nothing in a closely poised electoral contest – but it’s clear if you look at the distribution of swings that these averages mask a pretty broad range of outcomes. There have been Labor states that swung towards the federal ALP by nearly 10 percentage points (WA in 1983) and those that swung against Labor by more than that amount (Tasmania 1975); similarly Victoria in 1955 was a Coalition state that swung against the ALP (ie. towards the federal Coalition) by around 10 points.

None of these charts provide a comprehensive answer to the question of whether state parties drag down their federal counterparts. We can see that, on average, the swing towards the ALP is about 0.6 points bigger in non-ALP states. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the state governments are causing these swings. There are, quite obviously, many other factors at play in determining elections.

To get a better answer to the question of whether states drag down their federal counterparts, and if so how big the effect is, we’d need a model of elections that included a range of other relevant factors.3 If the effect remained after statistically controlling for other things that effect elections – like economic conditions, and the length of time that the government has been in office – then we could have more confidence that there’s some there there. As it is, the theory remains quite plausible, but to me it’s unproven.

EDIT: For anyone who’s interested in looking into this issue further, here’s the data I used. It combines AEC data (on the 2PP vote by state) and UWA Elections Database data (on which party was in power at state level).

State

Federal election date

Leader

Party

Party type

National 2PP swing to ALP

Federal ALP 2PP

State swing to fed ALP

Did state govt change since last fed election?

NSW

10/12/1949

McGirr, James

Australian Labor Party

ALP

50.8

QLD

10/12/1949

Hanlon, Edward Michael

Australian Labor Party

ALP

42.7

SA

10/12/1949

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

50.6

TAS

10/12/1949

Cosgrove, Robert

Australian Labor Party

ALP

46.5

VIC

10/12/1949

Hollway, Thomas Tuke

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

49.7

WA

10/12/1949

McLarty, Duncan Ross

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

47

NSW

28/04/1951

McGirr, James

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.3

50.5

-0.3

0

QLD

28/04/1951

Hanlon, Edward Michael

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.3

43.5

0.8

0

SA

28/04/1951

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

0.3

51.8

1.2

0

TAS

28/04/1951

Cosgrove, Robert

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.3

47.4

0.9

0

VIC

28/04/1951

McDonald, John Gladstone Black

Country Party

Non-ALP

0.3

50.7

1

0

WA

28/04/1951

McLarty, Duncan Ross

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

0.3

45.6

-1.4

0

NSW

29/05/1954

Cahill, John Joseph

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.4

53

2.5

0

QLD

29/05/1954

Gair, Vincent Clair

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.4

44.8

1.3

0

SA

29/05/1954

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

1.4

52.7

0.90000000000001

0

TAS

29/05/1954

Cosgrove, Robert

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.4

50

2.6

0

VIC

29/05/1954

Cain [snr], John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.4

50.7

0

1

WA

29/05/1954

Hawke, Albert Redvers George

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.4

48.1

2.5

1

NSW

10/12/1955

Cahill, John Joseph

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.9

49.5

-3.5

0

QLD

10/12/1955

Gair, Vincent Clair

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.9

43.9

-0.9

0

SA

10/12/1955

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

-4.9

49

-3.7

0

TAS

10/12/1955

Cosgrove, Robert

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.9

47.5

-2.5

0

VIC

10/12/1955

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

-4.9

40.8

-9.9

1

WA

10/12/1955

Hawke, Albert Redvers George

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.9

43.5

-4.6

0

NSW

22/11/1958

Cahill, John Joseph

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.1

49.8

0.3

0

QLD

22/11/1958

Nicklin, George Francis (Frank) Reuben

Country Party

Non-ALP

0.1

41.4

-2.5

1

SA

22/11/1958

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

0.1

49.8

0.8

0

TAS

22/11/1958

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.1

49.8

2.3

0

VIC

22/11/1958

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

0.1

42.3

1.5

0

WA

22/11/1958

Hawke, Albert Redvers George

Australian Labor Party

ALP

0.1

40.8

-2.7

0

NSW

09/12/1961

Heffron, Robert James

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.6

54.8

5

0

QLD

09/12/1961

Nicklin, George Francis (Frank) Reuben

Country Party

Non-ALP

4.6

50.7

9.3

0

SA

09/12/1961

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

4.6

54.2

4.4

0

TAS

09/12/1961

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.6

56

6.2

0

VIC

09/12/1961

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

4.6

44.5

2.2

0

WA

09/12/1961

Brand, David

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

4.6

43.5

2.7

1

NSW

30/11/1963

Heffron, Robert James

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-3.1

49.3

-5.5

0

QLD

30/11/1963

Nicklin, George Francis (Frank) Reuben

Country Party

Non-ALP

-3.1

48.1

-2.6

0

SA

30/11/1963

Playford [jnr], Thomas

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

-3.1

53.3

-0.90000000000001

0

TAS

30/11/1963

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-3.1

54.5

-1.5

0

VIC

30/11/1963

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

-3.1

42.5

-2

0

WA

30/11/1963

Brand, David

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

-3.1

43.8

0.3

0

NSW

26/11/1966

Askin, Robert [also Robin] William

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-4.3

43.9

-5.4

1

QLD

26/11/1966

Nicklin, George Francis (Frank) Reuben

Country Party

Non-ALP

-4.3

44.3

-3.8

0

SA

26/11/1966

Walsh, Francis Henry

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.3

42.4

-10.9

1

TAS

26/11/1966

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-4.3

53.9

-0.6

0

VIC

26/11/1966

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

-4.3

39.3

-3.2

0

WA

26/11/1966

Brand, David

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

-4.3

45.7

1.9

0

NSW

25/10/1969

Askin, Robert [also Robin] William

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

7.1

51.6

7.7

0

QLD

25/10/1969

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

7.1

49.9

5.6

0

SA

25/10/1969

Hall, Raymond Steele

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

7.1

54.2

11.8

1

TAS

25/10/1969

Bethune, Walter Angus

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

7.1

56.1

2.2

1

VIC

25/10/1969

Bolte, Henry Edward

Liberal and Country Party

Non-ALP

7.1

44.9

5.6

0

WA

25/10/1969

Brand, David

Liberal and Country League

Non-ALP

7.1

52.6

6.9

0

NSW

02/12/1972

Askin, Robert [also Robin] William

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

2.5

55.4

3.8

0

QLD

02/12/1972

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

2.5

49.5

-0.4

0

SA

02/12/1972

Dunstan, Donald Allan

Australian Labor Party

ALP

2.5

52.7

-1.5

1

TAS

02/12/1972

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

2.5

60.5

4.4

1

VIC

02/12/1972

Hamer, Rupert James (Dick)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

2.5

50.4

5.5

0

WA

02/12/1972

Tonkin, John Trezise

Australian Labor Party

ALP

2.5

48.3

-4.3

1

NSW

18/05/1974

Askin, Robert [also Robin] William

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1

54.9

-0.5

0

QLD

18/05/1974

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

-1

45.4

-4.1

0

SA

18/05/1974

Dunstan, Donald Allan

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1

52.5

-0.2

0

TAS

18/05/1974

Reece, Eric Elliott

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1

55.4

-5.1

0

VIC

18/05/1974

Hamer, Rupert James (Dick)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1

50.6

0.2

0

WA

18/05/1974

Court, Charles Walter Michael

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1

48.5

0.2

1

NSW

13/12/1975

Lewis, Thomas Lancelot (Tom)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-7.4

46.8

-8.1

0

NT

13/12/1975

Letts, Godfrey Alan

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-7.4

45.1

-2.2

QLD

13/12/1975

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

-7.4

39.8

-5.6

0

SA

13/12/1975

Dunstan, Donald Allan

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-7.4

44.9

-7.6

0

TAS

13/12/1975

Neilson, William Arthur

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-7.4

44.1

-11.3

0

VIC

13/12/1975

Hamer, Rupert James (Dick)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-7.4

43.8

-6.8

0

WA

13/12/1975

Court, Charles Walter Michael

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-7.4

41.2

-7.3

0

NSW

10/12/1977

Wran, Neville Kenneth

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.1

47.6

0.8

1

NT

10/12/1977

Everingham, Paul Anthony Edward

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.1

47.5

2.4

0

QLD

10/12/1977

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

1.1

42

2.2

0

SA

10/12/1977

Dunstan, Donald Allan

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.1

48.7

3.8

0

TAS

10/12/1977

Lowe, Douglas Ackley

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.1

43.8

-0.3

0

VIC

10/12/1977

Hamer, Rupert James (Dick)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.1

44.5

0.7

0

WA

10/12/1977

Court, Charles Walter Michael

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.1

39.9

-1.3

0

NSW

18/10/1980

Wran, Neville Kenneth

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.2

50.4

2.8

0

NT

18/10/1980

Everingham, Paul Anthony Edward

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.2

48.8

1.3

0

QLD

18/10/1980

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

4.2

46.9

4.9

0

SA

18/10/1980

Tonkin, David Oliver

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.2

49.6

0.9

1

TAS

18/10/1980

Lowe, Douglas Ackley

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.2

47.1

3.3

0

VIC

18/10/1980

Hamer, Rupert James (Dick)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.2

50.7

6.2

0

WA

18/10/1980

Court, Charles Walter Michael

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.2

46.7

6.8

0

NSW

05/03/1983

Wran, Neville Kenneth

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.63

54.09

3.69

0

NT

05/03/1983

Everingham, Paul Anthony Edward

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.63

51.87

3.07

0

QLD

05/03/1983

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

Country Party

Non-ALP

3.63

49.46

2.56

0

SA

05/03/1983

Bannon, John Charles

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.63

52.3

2.7

1

TAS

05/03/1983

Gray, Robin Trevor

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.63

43.58

-3.52

1

VIC

05/03/1983

Cain [jnr], John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.63

54.5

3.8

1

WA

05/03/1983

Burke, Brian Thomas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.63

55

8.3

1

NSW

01/12/1984

Wran, Neville Kenneth

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.46

52.91

-1.18

0

NT

01/12/1984

Tuxworth, Ian Lindsay

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1.46

48.61

-3.26

0

QLD

01/12/1984

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

National Party

Non-ALP

-1.46

47.71

-1.75

0

SA

01/12/1984

Bannon, John Charles

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.46

51.67

-0.63

0

TAS

01/12/1984

Gray, Robin Trevor

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1.46

46.63

3.05

0

VIC

01/12/1984

Cain [jnr], John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.46

53.09

-1.41

0

WA

01/12/1984

Burke, Brian Thomas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.46

50.86

-4.14

0

NSW

11/07/1987

Unsworth, Barrie John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.94000000000001

50.29

-2.62

0

NT

11/07/1987

Hatton, Stephen Paul

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-0.94000000000001

52.22

3.61

0

QLD

11/07/1987

Bjelke-Peterson, Johannes

National Party

Non-ALP

-0.94000000000001

49.32

1.61

0

SA

11/07/1987

Bannon, John Charles

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.94000000000001

50.24

-1.43

0

TAS

11/07/1987

Gray, Robin Trevor

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-0.94000000000001

46.9

0.27

0

VIC

11/07/1987

Cain [jnr], John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.94000000000001

52.3

-0.79000000000001

0

WA

11/07/1987

Burke, Brian Thomas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.94000000000001

50.91

0.049999999999997

0

ACT

24/03/1990

Kaine, Trevor Thomas

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-0.93

58.54

-4.71

NSW

24/03/1990

Greiner, Nicholas Frank Hugo

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-0.93

52.13

1.84

1

NT

24/03/1990

Perron, Marshall Bruce

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-0.93

55.02

2.8

0

QLD

24/03/1990

Goss, Wayne Keith

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.93

50.19

0.87

1

SA

24/03/1990

Bannon, John Charles

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.93

49.5

-0.74

0

TAS

24/03/1990

Field, Michael Walter

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.93

47.9

1

1

VIC

24/03/1990

Cain [jnr], John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.93

47.46

-4.84

0

WA

24/03/1990

Lawrence, Carmen Mary

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-0.93

47.13

-3.78

0

ACT

13/03/1993

Follett, Rosemary

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.54

61.19

2.65

1

NSW

13/03/1993

Fahey, John Joseph

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.54

54.38

2.25

0

NT

13/03/1993

Perron, Marshall Bruce

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.54

55.31

0.29

0

QLD

13/03/1993

Goss, Wayne Keith

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.54

48.43

-1.76

0

SA

13/03/1993

Arnold, Lynn Maurice Ferguson

Australian Labor Party

ALP

1.54

47.33

-2.17

0

TAS

13/03/1993

Groom, Raymond John

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.54

54.65

6.75

1

VIC

13/03/1993

Kennett, Jeffrey Gibb

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.54

51.8

4.34

1

WA

13/03/1993

Court, Richard Fairfax

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

1.54

46.02

-1.11

1

ACT

02/03/1996

Carnell, Anne Katherine (Kate)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

55.46

-5.73

1

NSW

02/03/1996

Carr, Robert John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-5.07

47.44

-6.94

1

NT

02/03/1996

Stone, Shane Leslie

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

49.63

-5.68

0

QLD

02/03/1996

Borbidge, Robert Edward

National Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

39.78

-8.65

1

SA

02/03/1996

Brown, Dean Craig

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

42.74

-4.59

1

TAS

02/03/1996

Groom, Raymond John

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

51.58

-3.07

0

VIC

02/03/1996

Kennett, Jeffrey Gibb

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

50.3

-1.5

0

WA

02/03/1996

Court, Richard Fairfax

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-5.07

44

-2.02

0

ACT

03/10/1998

Carnell, Anne Katherine (Kate)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.61

62.44

6.98

0

NSW

03/10/1998

Carr, Robert John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.61

51.54

4.1

0

NT

03/10/1998

Stone, Shane Leslie

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.61

50.57

0.94

0

QLD

03/10/1998

Beattie, Peter Douglas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.61

46.95

7.17

1

SA

03/10/1998

Olsen, John Wayne

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.61

46.89

4.15

0

TAS

03/10/1998

Bacon, James Alexander

Australian Labor Party

ALP

4.61

57.32

5.74

1

VIC

03/10/1998

Kennett, Jeffrey Gibb

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.61

53.53

3.23

0

WA

03/10/1998

Court, Richard Fairfax

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

4.61

49.46

5.46

0

ACT

10/11/2001

Humphreys, Gary John Joseph

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1.93

61.08

-1.36

0

NSW

10/11/2001

Carr, Robert John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

48.34

-3.2

0

NT

10/11/2001

Martin, Clare Majella

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

52.49

1.92

1

QLD

10/11/2001

Beattie, Peter Douglas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

45.14

-1.81

0

SA

10/11/2001

Kerin, Robert Gerard

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-1.93

45.92

-0.97

0

TAS

10/11/2001

Bacon, James Alexander

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

57.73

0.41

0

VIC

10/11/2001

Bracks, Stephen Phillip

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

52.14

-1.39

1

WA

10/11/2001

Gallop, Geoffrey Ian

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.93

48.38

-1.08

1

ACT

09/10/2004

Stanhope, Jonathon Donald

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

61.54

0.46

1

NSW

09/10/2004

Carr, Robert John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

48.07

-0.27

0

NT

09/10/2004

Martin, Clare Majella

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

52.15

-0.34

0

QLD

09/10/2004

Beattie, Peter Douglas

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

42.91

-2.23

0

SA

09/10/2004

Rann, Michael David

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

45.64

-0.28

1

TAS

09/10/2004

Lennon, Paul Anthony

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

54.19

-3.54

0

VIC

09/10/2004

Bracks, Stephen Phillip

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

49

-3.14

0

WA

09/10/2004

Gallop, Geoffrey Ian

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-1.79

44.6

-3.78

0

ACT

24/11/2007

Stanhope, Jonathon Donald

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

63.4

1.86

0

NSW

24/11/2007

Iemma, Morris

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

53.68

5.61

0

NT

24/11/2007

Martin, Clare Majella

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

55.41

3.26

0

QLD

24/11/2007

Bligh, Anna Maria

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

50.44

7.53

0

SA

24/11/2007

Rann, Michael David

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

52.4

6.76

0

TAS

24/11/2007

Lennon, Paul Anthony

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

56.21

2.02

0

VIC

24/11/2007

Brumby, John Mansfield

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

54.27

5.27

0

WA

24/11/2007

Carpenter, Alan John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

5.44

46.74

2.14

0

ACT

21/08/2010

Stanhope, Jonathon Donald

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

61.67

-1.73

0

NSW

21/08/2010

Keneally, Kristina Kerscher

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

48.84

-4.84

0

NT

21/08/2010

Henderson, Paul Raymond

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

50.74

-4.67

0

QLD

21/08/2010

Bligh, Anna Maria

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

44.86

-5.58

0

SA

21/08/2010

Rann, Michael David

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

53.18

0.78

0

TAS

21/08/2010

Bartlett, David John

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

60.62

4.41

0

VIC

21/08/2010

Brumby, John Mansfield

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-2.58

55.31

1.04

0

WA

21/08/2010

Barnett, Colin James

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-2.58

43.59

-3.15

1

ACT

07/09/2013

Gallagher, Katy

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-3.61

59.91

-1.76

0

NSW

07/09/2013

O'Farrell, Barry Robert

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-3.61

45.65

-3.19

1

NT

07/09/2013

Giles, Adam Graham

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-3.61

49.65

-1.09

1

QLD

07/09/2013

Newman, Campbell Kevin Thomas

Liberal National Party

Non-ALP

-3.61

43.02

-1.84

1

SA

07/09/2013

Weatherill, Jay Wilson

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-3.61

47.64

-5.54

0

TAS

07/09/2013

Giddings, Larissa Tahireh (Lara)

Australian Labor Party

ALP

-3.61

51.23

-9.39

0

VIC

07/09/2013

Napthine, Denis Vincent

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-3.61

50.2

-5.11

1

WA

07/09/2013

Barnett, Colin James

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

-3.61

41.72

-1.87

0

ACT

02/07/2016

Barr, Andrew

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.13

61.13

1.22

0

NSW

02/07/2016

Baird, Michael Bruce (Mike)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.13

49.47

3.82

0

NT

02/07/2016

Giles, Adam Graham

Country Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.13

57.06

7.41

0

QLD

02/07/2016

Palaszczuk, Annastacia

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.13

45.9

2.88

1

SA

02/07/2016

Weatherill, Jay Wilson

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.13

52.27

4.63

0

TAS

02/07/2016

Hodgman, William Edward Felix (Will)

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.13

57.36

6.13

1

VIC

02/07/2016

Andrews, Daniel

Australian Labor Party

ALP

3.13

51.83

1.63

1

WA

02/07/2016

Barnett, Colin James

Liberal Party

Non-ALP

3.13

45.34

3.62

0

]]>58The FT on Brexit, re-graphedhttp://mattcowgill.com/2018/02/17/the-ft-on-brexit-re-graphed/
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:50:10 +0000http://mattcowgill.com/?p=41read more The FT on Brexit, re-graphed]]>This post is part of a series in which I try to improve graphs I find around the web.

The Financial Times is home to some of the best data visualisation in the world today. They have a team of super talented graph wonks churning out all sorts of interesting charts in the kind of minimalist style I like. But occasionally I see FT graphs that could be improved with a few tweaks, like this one on Brexit from Martin Sandbu’s excellent daily newsletter:

This is a pretty good chart! But I think it could be improved by separating out wages from GDP, and by using dots instead of bars:

Separating out wages into its own little panel like this means that the legend can stay simple, with only two colours. The FT’s original was good, but I think mine is a little clearer.